Tags

As described in Thursday's RocWeekend, John Sebastian plays Saturday at First Unitarian Church. As not described in the story, you can no longer get a ticket; the show sold out after Thursday's RocWeekend went to press.

The high interest in the concert shouldn't be unexpected. The interview with Sebastian for the story went for well over a half an hour, and the former leader of The Lovin' Spoonful seemed fine with going even longer. There's a lot of history there, and Thursday's story only covers parts of it. After all, Sebastian played with dozens of the biggest names in folk, rock and pop music. The Lovin' Spoonful even did film soundtracks. One for Francis Ford Coppola. Another for Woody Allen's What's Up Tiger Lilly?, in which Allen took a really bad Japanese spy film and dubbed in dialogue that changed the story into a search for the world's best egg-salad recipe.

And one of the biggest bands that Sebastian worked with? It was almost Crosby, Stills, Nash & Sebastian.

"That gets inflated with each interview," Sebastian said, explaining how he nevertheless nearly ended up with the group. Sebastian was playing drums for Crosby, Stills & Nash during some rehearsals at a time when the group was also conducting the search for a drummer. "Why not Sebastian, he's doing well enough?" Stills said at one point.

As Sebastian explains it, he wasn't trained as a drummer, so he didn't know any extravagant drummer tricks. Which is exactly what three guitar-playing singer-songwriters were looking for. A drummer who knew his place.

And as the guy who had written all of the hits for The Lovin' Spoonful, they could hardly have kept Sebastian hidden behind the drums.

But Sebastian, who was getting ready to record his first solo album, ended up not playing with the group. He did, however, hook them up with their eventual longtime drummer, Dallas Taylor.

Arts and entertainment:
The arts define our culture. Some folks believe a night out with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra is the apex of art, while an evening spent with drag queens is the death of Western Civilization. But in reality, arts and entertainment encompasses both of those extremes, and all that lies in between: Popular music, unpopular music, museums, galleries, theater, dance, comedy, film, books, photography, poetry, your kids’ construction-paper art projects and Elvis impersonators. &nbsp;<br />A Cleveland native, living in Texas taught me barbecue appreciation, and inspired me to form a competition team here, the Smokin’ Dopes. Three years in Northern Idaho lead me to believe and hope that Bigfoot really does exist. Interviewing Johnny Cash, James Brown and Patti Smith are my biggest professional thrills. Interviewing Ted Nugent was not.&nbsp;<br />